Box Score WHITTIER, Calif. – The Whittier College Men's Water Polo team ended their 2019 regular season Saturday with a solid 13-8 victory over Occidental College.
Prior to the game the Purple & Gold recognized their five seniors, which included Murat Ersoz (Istanbul, Turkey), Hans Zdolsek (Linkoping, Sweden), Dominic Nevarez (Norwalk, Calif.), William DePrez (Upland, Calif.), and Emilio Maldonado (Chula Vista, Calif.). Whittier ends their regular season 17-12, 13-1 SCIAC. They have won seven of their last eight and enter the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Tournament as the No. 1 seed.
Whittier has a week of preparation for their SCIAC semi-final match-up, which will take place next Friday, November 22 at 7:00pm against the Bulldogs of the University of Redlands.
The Poets jumped all over the Tigers in the first half outscoring them 9-2. Every player on the WC squad saw playing time, which included four of the five goalies.
Zdolsek got the scoring started with back to back connections and was followed by a 2-meter goal from Micah Kamai (Irvine, Calif.). Oxy finally got on the scoreboard with 1:32 to play in the quarter but after that Whittier would put together a 6-1 run to close out the half with goals coming from Kamai, Nevarez, Carlos Heredia Viteri (Commerce, Calif.), and Eric Borunda (Whittier, Calif.).
It was a low scoring 3rd Quarter with the Tigers outscoring the Poets 2-1 to the cut the deficit to six at 10-4. Then across the final 8:00 minutes Oxy created pushback again outscoring WC this time 4-3. During the 4th Quarter tallies came from Heredia Viteri, Patrick Seelhorst (Whittier, Calif.), and Borunda and those strikes would be enough to pull off the home victory.
Ersoz played the opening half and finished with eight saves. Eliott Bergerson (Whittier, Calif.) played the 3rd Quarter and added two stops and a steal and Trevor Seifen and Adan De la Loza (Whittier, Calif.) would combine in the 4th for a save.
Whittier outshot Oxy 32-25 and was 3-for-9 on power-plays.
Zdolsek, Heredia Viteri, and Borunda each added three goals apiece and Nevarez tallied a goal and three assists.
